Into the Woods stars Johnny Depp as a Big Bad Wolf who sings and wears a fedora, and Meryl Streep as a Witch who sings and does witch stuff. Lots of other famous people also star, like Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine and Emily Blunt, in “a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales,” an intertwining story encompassing all the stories you remember from your Movie Executive’s Guide to Tales We Don’t Have to Pay Royalties For. My mom used to read it to me as a child.
Into the Woods was directed by Rob Marshall (Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Nine), and I know it looks like network TV queefed on celluloid, but it’s actually based on a Stephen Sondheim musical from the eighties, long before the current trend of re-purposing fairy tales as light dramedy for moms. So, uh, good for him? In my mind, that’s kind of like being into rap-rock before it was cool.
Into the Woods opens Christmas Day, and I’d like to think that the contemporary twist is that the cast is going to knock the Big Bad Wolf’s house down using a powerful gust created by their collective, simultaneous jazz hands, while they sing songs and vamp around high kicking. Musical theater kids gonna musical theater. (*puts on jazz shoes, sharpens eyeliner pencil*)